No Easy Way
by Jet44
Summary: When the wraith's need to feed grows critical, Sheppard and Todd have a conversation they've been putting off. With Sheppard now his captor, how do they find the honor they once shared? Tag to Common Ground and Miller's Crossing.


**Author's note:**

Common Ground is one of my favorite SGA episodes, thanks to the dynamics of two enemies working together and treating each other with honor despite mutual suspicion. I thought it was a rather beautiful story, and went a long way when it came to Sheppard's character development.

When Todd came back into the story, I was a little startled at how the relationship between he and Sheppard was portrayed - particularly Sheppard's behavior. Deep suspicion of Todd and his motives makes sense...but frankly I was shocked at the level of disrespect and outright verbal meanness Sheppard treated him with. I was also a little put off by the fact that it was obvious Sheppard and the rest of the SGA crew were holding him prisoner for an extended period of time without feeding him - to the point of him collapsing from weakness in Miller's Crossing.

They made much in Common Ground of the fact that denying Todd the chance to feed constituted torture, and for Sheppard to be submitting the same honorable wraith to that same torture without hesitation or even a mention of it in the story bothered me. Call it inconsistent writing or call it fan denial on my part, but I think Sheppard is a better person than that. So here is my attempt at a missing scene set before Miller's Crossing to fill out the story a bit.

* * *

"What do you want?" asked Sheppard, looking through the bars. Todd was sitting on the bench, looking a bit...ragged? It was hard to tell with the wraith, considering they always looked like death warmed over.

Todd raised his head and looked directly at Sheppard. "I grow very hungry, John Sheppard. We do not need to feed as often as you humans, but my needs grow stronger and more painful by the day. Soon I will be too weak to continue cooperating with you."

Sheppard looked away, his stomach tied in a knot. "You know how much we value human life. I can't - "

"Kolya did not hold life in such value," commented the wraith. "Nor do many others of your race. I have been used by humans to end human life many times. Why is it that you and your people feel so differently?"

"Kolya is – Kolya's a bastard," said Sheppard. "There are some people out there who murder and torture, but most of us call those people the bad guys. Most humans would go to great lengths to prevent the death of another person. That includes me, by the way, which is why I can't go feeding you some hapless guy I dragged off the street."

"And yet now it is you who has become the torturer." Todd stood and walked to face Sheppard through the bars. This was very much the wraith who had spoken to him in Kolya's prison; soft-spoken, with an air of hard-earned wisdom. "Are you a torturer, John Sheppard?"

Sheppard swallowed. "I've done it."

"And yet I see from your expression you are not at peace with such acts," observed the wraith.

Sheppard hesitated momentarily before deciding that at the very least, his prisoner deserved the truth. The wraith was unquestionably an enemy, and a cunning and dangerous one at that. But he was also an honorable, sentient being at Sheppard's mercy, one facing death, and he'd spent too much time as a prisoner himself not to know how that felt. The least he could do was show the wraith that his captor felt compassion, and understanding of his plight.

"I hate it with every fiber of my being." After his first encounter with Todd, he'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't repeat what he'd done to their first wraith prisoner. What had made him uncomfortable before now made him sick inside.

He met Todd's eyes again. "I would do a lot to be able to - meet your needs. It's just that the one thing I can't do is-"

Todd looked back in quiet understanding. "And am I right to assume that because of my knowledge of Atlantis, you will not consider releasing me?"

Sheppard nodded. Todd gave a low snarl and paced for a minute, finally returning to Sheppard. "There will come a time shortly where I will grow too weak to function, but a wraith can survive in a state of starvation for a very long time. Will you at least spare me that, John Sheppard?"

"Are you asking me to kill you?" asked Sheppard.

"When the time comes," said Todd, a certain quiet dignity in his request.

"Your kind aren't known for granting humans peaceful deaths," said Sheppard.

"I understand our feeding process causes you humans great pain," answered Todd quietly. "But it is by evolution, not design. I am not what you would term a sadist. If we could make the feeding process painless, many of us would."

He paced around the cell again. "When I fed on you, did you sense that I took any pleasure from the pain it caused you?"

"No," admitted Sheppard, his own voice quiet. If there had been any peace in those moments of agony, it had been in knowing that the creature doing it was not acting out of a desire to hurt him. He supposed it was that peace he wanted to offer the wraith in return. "I know you didn't do it for that."

"Then will you at least show me the mercy of ending my life when I ask?"

Sheppard nodded. "Okay. If - it comes to that - I'd like you to know that I won't take any pleasure in killing you. It'll be a rather - sad - thing for me."

"I did not know your value of life extended to our kind," said Todd, sounding almost amused.

"Neither did I," admitted Sheppard. "Just out of curiosity, if you were free right now, would you feed on me?"

"Yes," said Todd, his voice a low growl. "In the way that a human would eat a favored animal if his survival depended on it."

"Does that mean you wouldn't want to?"

"It means that - if I had an alternative food source, I would not choose to take your life. But my nature does not change, any more than you yourself might choose not to eat out of compassion for your food."

"Fair enough, I guess," said Sheppard.

The wraith inclined his head. "If it weren't for the matter of my need for food - you have treated me well, and the work here is interesting. I even grow fond of your easily startled doctor McKay. It would not be such a burden, to live my life among your kind."

Sheppard sighed. "Look - I'm hoping something comes up to give us an alternative to - what we've been talking about. I'm looking for ways around this. I haven't forgotten your saving my life, you know."

"I, too, have hope," said Todd. He smiled, always a downright creepy sight in a wraith. "A human taught me about that."

"Look-" Sheppard shifted position awkwardly. "Any time you want to see the stars, I can have the guards -"

"Thank you, John Sheppard."


End file.
